6
Good Times And Bad Times
Out of the blue, three years after we opened, the electricity board rang me and once again issued us with notice to vacate the car park which they owned. They had previously pulled out of selling the car park to us but had continued to lease it to us. This latest notice to vacate the land happened almost immediately after we had improved our entrance to the gardens. The implication of their demands was that we would have to make another entrance from the street up into the gardens. The present one crossed their land. To add to this pressure the electricity board had only given us one month to make it and it was not an easy task. We met the deadline and built a new stone stepped entrance with two brick columns on either side. This matched the entrance we had to close. We had a second wrought iron gate made to match the old one. I had designed these gates to reflect those already in the garden.
We also decided to purchase a bigger shed to stand at the entrance. Its function was to provide shelter for the member of staff who welcomed guests into the gardens. I was not going to make the same mistake that I had made when I purchased the first shed and I misjudged the measurements. At that time I had wanted to spend as little money as possible. You know when people buy a new sofa and say it looks so much bigger than it had seemed in the showroom? Well, buying the shed was quite the opposite experience. When it turned up it was tiny. The price should have given me a clue. When it comes to sheds you get what you pay for. Little money equals a little shed.
It looked like the Tardis from outside but unlike the Tardis became even smaller once you were inside. We immediately christened it the sentry box. There was barely enough space to stand in it. We looked to furnish it with a barstool and we sought a very slim person to join the team.
Our plans to replace the sentry box were drawn up almost immediately. I also sharpened up my measurement skills. When the new shed arrived it was just as I had measured. It was spacious. A table and two chairs were easily accommodated inside and it had a porch. Luxury.
I was looking forward to welcoming the first visitors through our grand new entrance and volunteered myself for the first shift. A couple of elderly women came in. I let them know that we offered concessions. They both misheard and thought I had said confessions. They were a little taken aback but I think that with a little persuasion I could have had them sit down in this well-appointed shed and confess to goodness knows what.
Continuing the story of the electricity board which had served us with notice to vacate the land; this was a really big blow to us. The income which we had been receiving from the car park was keeping the Hall and Gardens going. Without it we had to ask ourselves some serious questions as to whether or not we could remain open. Although the business was increasingly successful in terms of popularity it was taking an enormous amount of our time and was still not financially viable. Once the salaries were paid there was very little money left. We did enjoy the process but we could not afford to lose money by remaining open without the supplementary income from the car park. After much discussion we decided to extend the opening times to weekdays throughout the summer in the hope that these extra days would go some way towards replacing the lost income from the car park.
In the meantime I made it my mission to buy the car park and, some years later, after lengthy negotiation, I finally did. Even though the purchase price was much greater than we had initially agreed I was delighted because it ensured that the land remained with Crook Hall.
The management of the car park provided us with some challenges. We had a spate of thefts culminating in someone having his car stolen. The car owner was very philosophical about it but I felt responsible and offered him a lift home. He then told me he lived in Northumberland, about a 100 mile round trip. That was a long evening.
The police, who were already involved because of the petty thefts, investigated the crime. They had a plan. We would mount a surveillance operation. I was to park my car in one of the bays early one morning and keep an eye on the comings and goings. The police would then arrive at 9am sharp, park their car in my bay and continue the stake out.
It sounded really exciting.
We had already identified that all the thefts took place in the morning and the car park filled up very early so I took up my position at 7.30am.
I was still there at 9.15am. No police had arrived. At 9.20am a battered old car drove in. An ideal undercover car, it was a wreck. A man climbed out who looked just the part. Great disguise. I watched him wander around the car park. He appeared to be checking out the lie of the land. Good work. I guessed he was looking for me but had forgotten which bay I would be parked in.
I jumped out and ran over to greet the undercover police man. He looked at me in horror, dived back into the car and sped off out of the gates. It then dawned on me that he was the car thief. By the time the penny dropped another car, clean and gleaming, slowly pulled into the car park with two smart boys sitting in the front seats and gazing around. I went over and asked them who they were looking for. Turned out they were the police, twenty-five minutes late and missing their quarry.
Fortunately they had a plan B. This involved setting up a video camera at the window of one of our bedrooms. It would record all the activity in the car park. Surveillance 24/7. We were sworn to secrecy. Each day a person, not known to the staff, appeared at the Hall and Maggie showed them up to the bedroom so that they could change the tape on the video. The staff must have wondered what on earth was going on.
It was something of a relief when the thief was caught and the daily visits from the constabulary were no longer necessary.
* * *
During 2003 my consultancy business was changing. More of the team were working from their homes and we did not need as much office space. We decided to convert the two storey office into a ground floor office with a flat above which we could rent to holidaymakers. It seemed like a good idea but it was quite a task and a huge expense.
The holiday renting was an interesting activity. This was our first experience of renting out a flat. We’d anticipated people booking a one week holiday in Durham. It turned out that we rarely booked it out for more than a couple of days together.
Only one person stayed for a week. This man ordered a daily taxi to take him on a return journey to the bookies and spent the rest of the time standing in the car park smoking or inside watching the horse racing on the TV.
Most of the people who stayed wanted to be out of the house exploring our beautiful Cathedral city.
* * *
Maggie’s life was even busier, as she juggled motherhood and several part time jobs; job one working in child psychiatry at the hospital, job two at the Hall, job three running a private counselling practice, job four lecturing in counselling at the university and now job five – cleaning the flat and washing the bedding.
I was busy running my consultancy which was increasingly taking me out of the North East, and then at weekends helping in the coffee shop and in between times managing the various Hall building projects and assisting in the gardens. Oh, and being a dad.
Our children needed more support. They were facing important examinations and education choices had to be made. We knew we had to find the time to give them the help they required. There was a danger that, with all our focus elsewhere, we might be disregarding the most important area of our life, our family. Our children had to be our priority.
We were both feeling overwhelmed by the whole Crook Hall enterprise. Something had to change.
We decided to rebrand the holiday flat as a permanent let which would ease the workload. Maggie resigned from the university and phased out her private counselling practice. We finally had some breathing space – but less money.
It was at this time that we decided that we could not wait any longer to replace the damaged Georgian roof, but I worked out we could only afford to reroof three out
of the four elevations. The north facing one was in slightly better condition and by leaving this we could just afford to fund the rest of the work. When the scaffolding was up in the gardens and the slates were off I watched the slaters making light work of what looked like a very difficult job.
I wandered away to find somewhere quiet to have a cup of tea. I took a seat underneath the overhanging minstrel's gallery at the top of the walled garden. A good choice as it had started to drizzle. I sat with the tea and watched raindrops dripping from the large waxy leaves of the magnolia. I began to better understand and appreciate the work that the previous owners, the Hawgoods, had carried out. On moving here we had focused on what still needed to be done rather than what had already been achieved.
When the Hawgoods moved in, the Medieval Hall was half buried under rubble and soil. There was a huge hole in the north wall put through by the Fowlers so that they could use the Medieval Hall as a bottling plant. Not only had Dr and Mrs Hawgood sorted these things out they also added the beautiful turret which is such a wonderful addition to the Hall. They had managed to gain financial support for this project. Little did I know in that moment the great financial investment we would make in the years that lay ahead. Had I known, I may well have got up at that point, left, and handed the house keys in at the bank.
* * *
The children loved the place. The large rooms were built for entertaining and they took full advantage of the space. Ian, being the eldest, used it as base camp for his expeditions into Durham. More often than not on a Friday or Saturday night there would be many of his friends staying over. Maggie enforced some strict house rules, one being no shoes to be worn upstairs. So we used to count the pairs of abandoned shoes at the bottom of the stairs to determine how many of his friends were sleeping on his bedroom floor. The record was fifteen pairs. We slept at the other end of the Hall so we rarely heard them arrive back. They would heat up post-night out treats on the Aga and exchange endless tales around the kitchen table.
What I did notice was that some of the boys seemed to borrow each other’s clothes. Their philosophy seemed to be ‘what’s mine is yours’ or rather ‘what’s yours is mine’. Which is fine, but I did get annoyed when one of them entered the kitchen wearing my recent Christmas present – a Billabong t-shirt. He had helped himself from my wardrobe.
We would often find the boys’ discarded clothing lying around. The attic was my art studio. One lunchtime my parents went up there to look at some of my paintings. They noticed what they thought was a pile of clothes left by one of Ian’s friends with a mobile phone balanced on top. Just as they were remarking that the younger generation did not look after their possessions the pile stirred and out popped the head of Ian’s friend, James. He peered at them with bleary eyes, let out a rather unearthly groan and then disappeared back into this pit. Alarmed, my parents left him to his hungover misery.
Amanda our daughter, who is a few years younger than Ian, seemed to live a separate life to her brother. They are now best of friends but in their early teens they rarely spoke to each other. She had a small group of close friends. They used the upper part of the Jacobean room as a stage to put on Spice Girl shows which were very loud. Thank goodness karaoke machines were not around at that time. They sometimes spent all night trying to sleep in the supposedly haunted Jacobean room. I say trying to sleep because I don’t think much sleeping occurred – more often than not they kept each other awake with ghost stories.
As she grew older her friends used to come round and spend seemingly endless hours getting ready to go out. Once she was away at university the visits home, although not as frequent as we would have liked, were always happy occasions. She would often invite her old school friends round as well as many new university friends. The house had plenty of space and it was great having it full of young people again.
On one occasion, when they were both home, one of Ian’s friends from university took a shine to Amanda. He left Ian and the rest of the boys in a very cold Durham to come back to the house early. He had imagined staging a scene out of Romeo and Juliet but this fantasy was dashed by the first stone he threw up at Amanda’s window. The stone crashed through the window pane and showered him with splinters of glass. His prepared announcements of love were greeted by silence. Amanda slept on. The unfortunate suitor was locked out of the house. Ian and his friends returned some hours later to discover the erstwhile Romeo hugging himself in the corner of a frosty courtyard, desperately trying to keep warm. A complete contrast to the scene he had envisaged but he was certainly pleased to see and feel the warmth of the greeting from his fellow students. Amanda was less pleased to wake up to find her windows shattered and a cold wind blowing through the gap. At least her dreams had not been shattered, unlike his.
Once our children left university they gained employment in London. No more long holidays home. The nest was empty. Not only were we missing them but also all their friends who used to fill the house up with their lively chatter. It became very quiet. Thank goodness for the increasing number of visitors.
* * *
When the children were younger we used to have au pairs stay with us and help with child care. It was lovely to have some of them return and visit us at Crook Hall. One of them ended up marrying a very famous French footballer. We had been invited to the wedding. Our famous footballer was a key player in the French national team who came to Durham in 1996. It was Euro 96 and the French team set up their base for the first rounds in Newcastle. Ian and I went to one of the matches.
One day I returned from work to find that our au pair had visited us and had brought her husband and his friends with her. Maggie had served tea to all of the French national football team. Maggie has no interest in football at all and the only footballer she has ever heard of was David Beckham. On the other hand I wanted to find out who was here. What did they say? What did they think of the place? Was Cantona here? Was Henri also here? I had loads and loads of questions but Maggie had no answers. Maggie, in a very appropriate French way, seemed to be very ‘nonplus’ about the whole encounter. I could not believe it had happened and I was astounded that it was so unimportant to her. I wished I had been there.
* * *
During the initial period of ownership we had the time to use the premises more socially than commercially. We loved using the formal Georgian dining room, especially at Christmas. When the children were younger we always used to invite Amanda’s godparents and their young children round to celebrate Christmas Eve and exchange presents in front of the blazing log fire. This was always a lovely occasion.
On Christmas Day the dining table was reset for our family Christmas dinner. The furnishing seemed appropriate for a traditional family occasion. The room has a table and a Welsh dresser which has been passed down through Maggie’s family as has the large press, a large cupboard with drawers below. The big oil painting, dated 1875, is a portrait of Maggie’s great-great-grandfather. It was painted by John Horsborough, Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts 1835–1924, a Scottish portrait painter and photographer. He, along with his father, had painted people such as Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and Queen Victoria. Based in Edinburgh he was one of the leading painters of his day. We seem to know more about him than Maggie’s ancestor. Maybe the furniture was originally owned by the great-great-grandfather. Since those early days most of the furniture remains the same but the function of the room has changed. It is now a tea room by day and a bar in the evenings.
The Medieval Hall was ideal for candlelit dinner parties and other functions. We celebrated my management consultancy’s ten years in business, my fiftieth birthday and our silver wedding anniversary in the Hall. Amanda had a fantastic eighteenth birthday party and we had a great millennium bash. For those who remember, there was a lot of hype in the run up to the 2000 New Year’s Eve. Not only because it was the millennium, but also because people thought there would be a worldwide co
mputer crash, resulting in planes falling out of the sky, satellites failing to work, power stations becoming inoperable and communications grinding to a halt. For those who do not know what I am talking about, just ask your parents.
* * *
By 2007, we had over 300 season ticket holders and we had expanded our openings with many children’s events and Christmas activities. We had also begun holding weddings and that Christmas our son, Ian, announced his engagement to Rebecca. A family wedding was planned for the following autumn. Increasingly, we found ourselves trying to juggle the management of a very busy visitor attraction with finding time for ourselves. We were beginning to feel the pressure again.
* * *
A few years earlier we had started providing food at some of our functions. We had no catering experience so we were on a steep learning curve. Maggie was a good cook, having hosted many successful dinner parties. I could make a mean macaroni cheese and boil a kettle but boiling an egg would be on the boundaries of my competence.
We found the functions very stressful and so we decided that we needed to outsource our catering. It was an interesting induction into the hospitality industry. One of our friends, a professional chef, helped out at a function but rued the day. This was to be his first, and last, foray into outside catering. While the event was a huge success, with all the guests thoroughly enjoying the evening, there was a lingering problem; the smell of fish. Although we had a team clearing and cleaning, one of the guests popped into the kitchen and offered the chef a ‘helping’ hand. Help is always welcome but on this occasion accepting it was a mistake. The guest was, in every respect, the friendly drunk. He praised every aspect of the evening with great gusto, and then offered to carry a few things out to the car, including a large urn of fish stock. He was unsteady on his feet. I watched him stagger, and I mean stagger, across the courtyard and through the gate. I followed him with some pots and pans. He managed to reach the open boot of the caterer’s car and then seemed to have an inexplicable urge to empty the contents of the urn into the back of their car. I am sure it was an accident but it looked purposeful. He slurred out an embarrassed apology. The two caterers started to clean the car whilst encouraging their overly willing helper to leave them to it. Some months later I met up with the caterers who told me that they never did get rid of the fishy smell. The essence of rotting fish eventually forced them into an early sale of the car. I was left wondering who would buy the car. Perhaps someone who liked sushi.
Blood, Sweat and Scones Page 7